Larkington called that evening at Mrs. Fallow-Deer's, and found the ladies at home.
Count Clawski, who had been dining en famille with Mrs. Fallow-Deer, obligingly devoted himself to her, and Larkington was left free to talk to Miss Carleton.
He was in high spirits. The splendid exercise of the afternoon had set his blood aglow, and a convivial dinner with the bachelors, which had followed at the house of their captain, had not decreased his pleasurable condition of mind and body. Miss Carleton was as charming a person to talk to, to listen to, to look at, as Larkington had ever met.
She was sitting—the attitude would be better described as reclining—in a low arm-chair; her strong and svelte young figure took a natural and thoroughly graceful pose, and the folds of her white dress fell about its outlines, revealing them, but not too distinctly for maidenliness.
